MANILA, Philippines — More ex-convicts surrendered after President Duterte’s Sept. 19 deadline lapsed, such that the number of surrenderers continued to surpass the official number of so-called prematurely released prisoners whom the government asked to return to prison.
The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) recorded an additional 130 surrenderers since early Saturday morning, bringing the total surrenderers to 2,139 as of 10 a.m. Sept. 21.
Numbers don’t tally
The total included the 236 ex-convicts still in the custody of the Philippine National Police, according to Undersecretary Markk Perete of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The BuCor list submitted to the DOJ only contained 1,914 names of former prisoners who were supposed to have been released since 2014 under Republic Act No. 10592 or the expanded good conduct time allowance law of 2013.